Expression Pattern of the Hippo Pathway Effector TAZ in Cellular and Fibrotic Nonspecific Interstitial Pneumonia

Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is a comprehensive term referring to a group of lung diseases affecting the interstitium of the lung. Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is the most common idiopathic ILD, and nonspecific interstitial pneumonia (NSIP) is the second most common. As the name suggests, NSIP is diagnosed after many other diseases are excluded. The main pathological finding in NSIP is homogeneous interstitial inflammation with or without fibrosis.[1] NSIP can be categorized by cellular type or fibrotic type, according to the grade of inflammation and fibrosis. The cellular type has mostly inflammatory lesions with good responses to steroid, but the fibrotic type has a large proportion of fibrosis mixed with inflammatory lesions and a relatively poor response to steroid treatment.[1] So far, the exact mechanism underlying idiopathic ILD has not been clarified. Determining key regulators of these ILDs will be helpful in the diagnosis and development of novel drugs for ILD.